It was lovely summer weather in the country, and down by the moat, in a nest among the reeds, a mother duck sat upon her eggs, waiting for them to hatch. One by one they cracked, and out came the little ducklings, cheeping and looking about them at the wide green world. But the largest egg of all lay still and would not hatch, and the mother sat on, though she was weary of it.
At last it broke, and out tumbled the last of her young, and he was big and grey and clumsy, and not at all like the others. “What a great ugly thing,” said the mother, doubtfully. And when she led her brood down to the water, the ugly duckling swam as well as any of them, so she thought perhaps he would do after all.
But in the farmyard the other creatures had no such patience. The ducks bit him, and the hens pecked him, and the girl who fed the poultry pushed him aside with her foot, and even his own brothers and sisters were unkind, and wished him gone. “You are too ugly,” they said, and the poor duckling did not know where to look, and was ashamed because he was so ugly and so laughed at by the whole yard.
So at last he ran away. He flew over the fence and off across the fields, and the little birds in the bushes flew up in fright, “because I am so ugly,” thought the duckling, and shut his eyes and hurried on. He came to a wide marsh where the wild ducks lived, and there he lay, weary and wretched, and the wild ducks looked at him and said, “What sort of creature are you?” but let him stay, so long as he married none of them, which was the last thing in his thoughts.
Autumn came, and the leaves turned, and one evening a flock of great birds rose out of the reeds, dazzling white, with long graceful necks. They were swans, and they spread their wide wings and flew away to warmer lands; and the ugly duckling, watching them go, felt a strange longing he could not name, and gave a cry so loud and strange it frightened even himself. He could not forget those beautiful birds.
Then winter came, hard and bitter, and the duckling nearly died of the cold, frozen fast in the ice one night until a farmer broke him free and carried him home to his children. But he was so frightened of them, and blundered so among the milk and the butter, that he fled again out into the cold, and passed a long, hard, lonely winter in the reeds, more miserable than words can tell.
But winter does not last forever. The sun grew warm again, the larks began to sing, and the duckling found that his wings were strong now, and beat the air, and bore him up, and carried him at last to a fine garden where apple trees bloomed and a stream ran clear. And there, gliding upon the water, were three of those same beautiful white swans.
“I will fly to them,” he thought, “and let them kill me if they must, for it is better to be killed by such lovely creatures than to be pecked and frozen and despised.” And he flew down to the water, and bowed his head, and waited for the blow. But in the clear water he saw his own reflection, and it was no longer a dark, grey, ugly bird that looked back at him, but a swan, white and graceful as the rest.
For it does not matter in the least being born in a duckyard, if only you have lain in a swan’s egg. The great swans swam round him and stroked him with their beaks and welcomed him as one of their own; and little children came and threw crumbs and cried, “There is a new one, and he is the most beautiful of all.” And the young swan, remembering how he had been mocked and hunted, felt almost too happy, and yet not proud, for a good heart is never proud.
What is different is not always ugly; and the creature that is scorned in one place may only be waiting to grow into its own, in its own good time.